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Building Dragons 'Smart' Panther G

stages 9 to 11

Choice, choices……………. You can have the louvres over the rectangular grills or not. You can have them open or closed. I chose to leave them off since the photo etched grills look superb, but check your references!
The jack block on the left is also supplied as one piece with the bracket, or as separate pieces, so make your choice! This stage is also where you get to fit the very narrow side fenders, and again, there is a small mistake in the instructions. C28 should actually read C27 and vice versa. Make sure that all the brackets for each fender face the same way. The fender takes some strain when fitted, since it’s so long and narrow, so if you want to fit the fender to the brackets straight away, then use super glue for the brackets, or they won’t take the strain straight away. Also, leave the front bracket off until after you’ve fitted the fender to make sure that it lines up dead straight with the front part of the fender.
All the various tool brackets can be fitted now. Whether or not you choose to leave the tools off and paint them separate is a personal choice of course, but be aware that the brackets for the spare track links will need some ‘adaptation’ if you’re going to want to actually hang spare track links on them!
These brackets for the spare track links have separate locking pins to hold the spare track links in place. There is no way they will fit if you use a spare track link, although they look great if the brackets are to be left empty! Dragon simply haven’t allowed for the thickness of the track link, which means that the pins cannot be inserted if you install a track link. Not only that, but the bottom arm of the bracket, that must be inserted through the link, is way too thick. So firstly, a little of the width of the lower arm must be removed, being careful not to damage the hole for the locking pin. Then a tiny shave off the back rounded part of each track link, and then lastly, substitute wire for the pins.

stages 12 to 14

Assembly of the main gun, and detailing of the turret. Although not fantastically detailed, the breech assembly does the job, taking into account what will be seen when the kit is complete. You will have to choose which mantlet you’re going to use, again use the ‘chinned’ mantlet for a later example.
Dragon supply a close in defense weapon that be left open or closed, mine is open, and the choice is also given to leave the rear turret hatch open. The Commander’s hatch can be left open, as you would expect, and with the detail inside the cupola, you will want to!
The cupola is made up of 23 parts or thereabouts. All the periscopes are supplied as transparent plastic, and look amazing once slipped into place. You again get the choice of fitting the AA ring mount to the cupola, I left mine off, in which case you’ll need to attach the small photo etched ‘squares’ to the top of the periscope covers……..but not all of them! As you can see from the pics if you look really closely, there are a couple of parts left off my cupola, but they’re there now! It’s really easy to miss things, so read those instructions carefully! Remember when you could look at the sprues, and if you had anything still on them, you’d know you had missed something? Ahhh…. The good old days! With modern Dragon kits, you expect loads to be left on the sprues at the end of the day, so there is no alternative to taking your time, and then double checking!